Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 11/15/24

Saintly sagas. Executive produced and narrated by the iconic filmmaker, Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints premieres with the story of Joan of Arc this Sunday on Fox Nation. Additional episodes featuring will roll out weekly through December 8th focusing on such heroes of the Christian faith as John the Baptist, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. A second slate of episodes due at Easter season in 2025 will feature thought-provoking and inspiring bios of Francis of Assisi, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene and Moses the Black.

I just viewed the part one of the debut episode about Joan of Arc. My review follows this Fox Nation Synopsis:

Joan of Arc fervently believed that St. Catherine, St. Margaret and St. Michael appeared to her and told her that she would be the one to deliver her beloved home country of France from the brutal carnage of the Hundred Years’ War. While we can never know what actually happened, we do know that her role in the French campaign against the English helped bring about the coronation of King Charles VII, and end the long, bloody conflict. She was the devout daughter of small-town farmers, who somehow inspired an army to break the siege of Orléans. She was a fiery leader who dressed in men’s clothing and promised to drive the English out of France, but also prayed for the dying on the battlefield, even if they were her enemies. After a series of victories in battle, Joan cleared the way for King Charles VII to be coronated at Reims in 1429. Not satisfied, Joan was determined to drive every last trace of the English out of France, but in 1430 Joan was captured and turned over to the English. She was accused of heresy and witchcraft by Catholic Clergy sympathetic to the English cause. She was tried by an ecclesiastical court that despised her, intimidated and threatened her. But Joan remained steadfast and was ultimately burned at the stake. Twenty-five years after her death, Joan was given a new trial and her sentence annulled. Sainthood would take nearly 500 years, when she was finally canonized in 1920. Today, she is the patron saint of soldiers.

IMHO: This is certainly an ambitious undertaking for Fox Nation that applies cinematic production values to a compelling docudrama about a historic woman whose story we are sort of familiar with but can have a hard time really understanding. Briskly told with a running time of just over 45 minutes and interspersed with Scorsese’s captivating narration, the production held my interest and left me wanting more. I would have actually like to have seen the story told as a full-fledged two-hour dramatic feature (directed by Scorsese) but I guess that would have been a budget buster.

As it it is, the story of Joan of Arc is remarkably timely in this period when the power of an authoritarian state, whether secular or religious, seems to many to be quite threatening to individual liberty, including a faith in a God who is above human-made institutions. Joan is betrayed and tortured by the very people who should have been protecting her. It was human beings with earthly power, not God, who shamed her and cruelly burned her at the stake. All of this sounds disturbingly relatable to our current time when social media and lawfare can mercilessly be wielded to crush individuals who don’t align with current required thought.

The docudrama concludes with a panel discussion led by Scorsese and including Fr. James Martin (Author, My Life with the Saints), Paul Elie (Senior Fellow Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs) and poet Mary Karr who discuss the path to Joan’s eventual canonization by the very Church that initially condemned her. It’s a fascinating discussion worth staying tuned for.

The Bottom Line: Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints is off to a strong start and represents a step in the right direction for Fox Nation. I look forward to future episodes.
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Coming Attractions:

for KING + COUNTRY’S A Drummer Boy Christmas (in theaters December 5th)